Just wondered if anyone else is having the same problem. I’ve got a Tomtom 6250 with ‘lifetime’ traffic. A couple of months ago it stopped receiving the live traffic with just a message saying it was ‘unavailable’ and to try later, left for a few days with no improvement and eventually did a factory reset, as recommended by TomTom, which was a time-consuming pain but it did work and I got the live traffic back. The same thing has happened again, typically on a day the I could have done with having it. I’ll do the reset thing again over the weekend but I was wondering if this is a ploy by TomTom to upgrade the device (it’s only about 4 years old!), or is anyone else having the same issue? TomTom support is apparently non-existent.
Failing that, What other brands of Satnav, apart from TomTom and Garmin, are decent for live traffic?
Yes I have had exactly the same issue with mine I believe it’s the same model as yours but can not be 100% certain as it’s in my lorry and I am home with the life time live traffic , again it’s about 4 to 5 years old give or take a bit.I mentioned this to my mate who is a lot wiser than me and used to do all over Europe he had the same problem and he is absolutely convinced it’s a way of TomTom getting more money out of you by sending it back for repair when it goes back he seems to think they put an internal SIM card in for the internet which again only has a limited life span it just seems funny all three of us have had these problems.I get round it by pairing it up to my I phone and using my data of that to keep the live traffic going it works a treat
Resetting the TomTom usually resolves this issue. If it doesn’t remove the serial number sticker on the bottom and the SIM card is underneath that, remove sim with a pair of tweezers and blow out any dust/fluff and clean the contacts on the SIM card and reinsert it. And try again.
The 6250 has a built in sim to receive traffic, trouble is it uses 2G technology from vodafone i believe…2G bandwidth is slowly being reduced and will eventually be phased out altogether.
To solve this you just need to tether the tomtom to your phone which presumably is 4G or 5G, works fine like this.
Of course it kind of defeats the object of buying the more expensive 6250 over the 6200 which has to be tethered to your phone for traffic to work but hey…like has been said these devices are getting on for 4 or 5 years old now but still work great as long as the updates keep coming
RIPPER:
The 6250 has a built in sim to receive traffic, trouble is it uses 2G technology from vodafone i believe…2G bandwidth is slowly being reduced and will eventually be phased out altogether.
To solve this you just need to tether the tomtom to your phone which presumably is 4G or 5G, works fine like this.
Of course it kind of defeats the object of buying the more expensive 6250 over the 6200 which has to be tethered to your phone for traffic to work but hey…like has been said these devices are getting on for 4 or 5 years old now but still work great as long as the updates keep coming
I have the 6200 with subscription and my 6200 has an in built SIM card same as the 6250.
Thanks for replies, I’ve tried removing, cleaning and replacing the SIM but no joy. If I want to use it tethered to my phone is it enough to use the bluetooth (which doesn’t seem to do the job) or do I need to use the phone’s wifi hotspot as well?
tallyman:
Thanks for replies, I’ve tried removing, cleaning and replacing the SIM but no joy. If I want to use it tethered to my phone is it enough to use the bluetooth (which doesn’t seem to do the job) or do I need to use the phone’s wifi hotspot as well?
I can only go from experience of my 620, Bluetooth is fine, but if using wifi the traffic info received covers a larger area so occasionally a bonus for routing a long drive.
RIPPER:
The 6250 has a built in sim to receive traffic, trouble is it uses 2G technology from vodafone i believe…2G bandwidth is slowly being reduced and will eventually be phased out altogether.
To solve this you just need to tether the tomtom to your phone which presumably is 4G or 5G, works fine like this.
Of course it kind of defeats the object of buying the more expensive 6250 over the 6200 which has to be tethered to your phone for traffic to work but hey…like has been said these devices are getting on for 4 or 5 years old now but still work great as long as the updates keep coming
I have the 6200 with subscription and my 6200 has an in built SIM card same as the 6250.
Sent from my CPH2173 using Tapatalk
OK didn’t know that…so what’s the difference? Did you get lifetime traffic and speedcam updates?
tallyman:
Thanks for replies, I’ve tried removing, cleaning and replacing the SIM but no joy. If I want to use it tethered to my phone is it enough to use the bluetooth (which doesn’t seem to do the job) or do I need to use the phone’s wifi hotspot as well?
I use wifi hotspot, judging from other peoples comments bluetooth tethering is not reliable enough
RIPPER:
The 6250 has a built in sim to receive traffic, trouble is it uses 2G technology from vodafone i believe…2G bandwidth is slowly being reduced and will eventually be phased out altogether.
To solve this you just need to tether the tomtom to your phone which presumably is 4G or 5G, works fine like this.
Of course it kind of defeats the object of buying the more expensive 6250 over the 6200 which has to be tethered to your phone for traffic to work but hey…like has been said these devices are getting on for 4 or 5 years old now but still work great as long as the updates keep coming
I have the 6200 with subscription and my 6200 has an in built SIM card same as the 6250.
Sent from my CPH2173 using Tapatalk
OK didn’t know that…so what’s the difference? Did you get lifetime traffic and speedcam updates?
6250 has a better processor I believe and it’s not a lifetime subscription, I pay yearly for speed cameras and possibly traffic, can’t remember off hand. There isn’t a great deal of difference between the 2.
tallyman:
Thanks for replies, I’ve tried removing, cleaning and replacing the SIM but no joy. If I want to use it tethered to my phone is it enough to use the bluetooth (which doesn’t seem to do the job) or do I need to use the phone’s wifi hotspot as well?
I use wifi hotspot, judging from other peoples comments bluetooth tethering is not reliable enough
Thanks again for the replies. Maybe I’m being thick but I’ve got a definite bluetooth connection between phone and satnav and the satnav recognises, and connects to, the my phone’s mobile hotspot. However I’ve still got no traffic connection, little ‘x’ on the icon and it’s still permanently saying ‘We are having trouble accessing TomTom services. Please try again later’. Do I have to tell the satnav to use the wifi hotspot link rather than the SIM, or does it just try using either?
tallyman:
Thanks for replies, I’ve tried removing, cleaning and replacing the SIM but no joy. If I want to use it tethered to my phone is it enough to use the bluetooth (which doesn’t seem to do the job) or do I need to use the phone’s wifi hotspot as well?
I use wifi hotspot, judging from other peoples comments bluetooth tethering is not reliable enough
Thanks again for the replies. Maybe I’m being thick but I’ve got a definite bluetooth connection between phone and satnav and the satnav recognises, and connects to, the my phone’s mobile hotspot. However I’ve still got no traffic connection, little ‘x’ on the icon and it’s still permanently saying ‘We are having trouble accessing TomTom services. Please try again later’. Do I have to tell the satnav to use the wifi hotspot link rather than the SIM, or does it just try using either?
Must be a problem with their services…does happen occasionally, i usually try a soft reset and sometimes it’ll come back on, hold the power button down until you hear the tomtom drums then release and let it reboot itself, worth a try
I have the older 6000 model which uses a built-in SIM only (no facility to connect to a phone at all) but do on odd occasions see the “Unavailable” or “We’re having problems connecting to Live services” message.
On mine, a simple power-cycle reset (ie switch it fully off with a long press of the power button, wait a minute and power up again) almost always fixes it.
Assuming the menus are similar, you can check to confirm whether the problem is due to loss of Internet connectivity or problems at TomTom’s end via the “Live Services” menu.
You can also go into Settings/System/About to check on network connectivity status.
tallyman:
Thanks for replies, I’ve tried removing, cleaning and replacing the SIM but no joy. If I want to use it tethered to my phone is it enough to use the bluetooth (which doesn’t seem to do the job) or do I need to use the phone’s wifi hotspot as well?
tallyman:
Thanks for replies, I’ve tried removing, cleaning and replacing the SIM but no joy. If I want to use it tethered to my phone is it enough to use the bluetooth (which doesn’t seem to do the job) or do I need to use the phone’s wifi hotspot as well?
I did consider that, I can get a cheap second SIM on my current contract but I resent paying anything extra when TomTom offers ‘lifetime’ traffic which possibly isn’t any such thing.
I’ve rebooted (soft and hard) and still no joy. I’ll do a factory reset again, the MyTraffic app successfully reloaded all my POIs etc last time so I’m hopeful it will just be a matter of letting it get on with the process for an hour or so.
I have had a 6250 pro for a year or so and had the same happen twice in the first 6 months. Second time I did a reset and redownloaded the updates again. Worked perfectly since. I am not sure if it was the updates that caused a problem or whether it was a coincidence but both times I lost the service it was after I had downloaded an update via wifi at home.
Sorry slightly off topic… When they say lifetime do they mean for life use, or for their idea on the lifetime of the actual product you buy?
I bet they will have a small print that allows them to word it as LIFETIME thus meaning these products are time limited, a bit like unlimited
data has small print stating reasonable usage applies ?
tallyman:
Thanks for replies, I’ve tried removing, cleaning and replacing the SIM but no joy. If I want to use it tethered to my phone is it enough to use the bluetooth (which doesn’t seem to do the job) or do I need to use the phone’s wifi hotspot as well?
Narc:
Sorry slightly off topic… When they say lifetime do they mean for life use, or for their idea on the lifetime of the actual product you buy?
I bet they will have a small print that allows them to word it as LIFETIME thus meaning these products are time limited, a bit like unlimited
data has small print stating reasonable usage applies ?
Just mulling over if I buy a satnav or an app…
It certainly does mean the latter - “Lifetime” means as long as they carry on supporting/updating that model. It’s explicitly stated as such on their website and in their documentation.
Narc:
Sorry slightly off topic… When they say lifetime do they mean for life use, or for their idea on the lifetime of the actual product you buy?
I bet they will have a small print that allows them to word it as LIFETIME thus meaning these products are time limited, a bit like unlimited
data has small print stating reasonable usage applies ?
Just mulling over if I buy a satnav or an app…
Not a human lifetime that is for sure; it is a disingenuous term.
"TomTom goes on to explain its definition of lifetime updates, saying: ‘Lifetime means the useful life of the device, i.e. the period of time TomTom supports your device with updates, services, content or accessories. A device will have reached the end of its life when none of these are available anymore.’ "
Source: which.co.uk/news/article/to … T9A8l7YpLA
…(because TomTom like to hide such information).